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Forgetting the Lessons of Genocide

By DAVID KAMPF

March 31, 2014

And there was real hope that Rwanda would lead to the dawn of a new era of defending human rights. With the Cold War in the rearview mirror, there was a luxury to think that humanitarian intervention could reshape international norms. NATO used this as justification for its bombing campaign to defend Kosovo, and a few years later the new concept of a “responsibility to protect” was born to address past failures to stop crimes against humanity. Sovereignty was no longer considered inviolable.

Unfortunately, facts on the ground are again being overlooked and the same excuses for dithering are being employed now. The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the war on terror changed the discussion, and there is noticeable delay in finding solutions to the world’s most urgent disasters.

Never again is happening again. Fighting in Syria has killed more than 140,000 people, displaced millions more and included the use of chemical weapons, while talks are going nowhere. The international response has been ineffectual at best, and the hesitation has only complicated the response.

Ominous signs are also mounting in the Central African Republic as violence spirals out of control with a real danger of full-scale ethnic cleansing by Muslims or Christians (depending on the back and forth of the conflict). Given all the competing priorities, there are insufficient attention and not enough peacekeepers to stem the tide.

The United Nations reports that more than 1 million people have been forced from their homes in South Sudan since December and warns that the situation could get even worse with violence continuing and millions more in need of humanitarian assistance.

To be fair, global powers aren’t doing nothing. A multinational coalition used military force to end the civil war in Libya. France, with the African Union, took the lead in the Central African Republic to avert the worst, and the international community helped secure South Sudan’s cease-fire agreement in January to try to contain the situation so the world’s newest country isn’t a failed state.

Crises are not always black or white, either. Syria is complicated. It’s more than a humanitarian concern, and it’s not just a refugee crisis — any outside involvement could have major regional and global ramifications, given the strategic nature of the conflict. Americans and Europeans are also hamstrung by infighting among U.N. Security Council members, with Russia, the Syrian regime’s chief patron, or China often opposed to greater involvement.

But U.S. leadership is missing when it’s needed most. The global response won’t change unless the world’s superpower changes other countries’ calculations.

It has been only two decades since the Rwandan genocide — this is far too soon to forget what it taught us. Risks of humanitarian disasters must be addressed and the international community can’t stand on the sidelines as crises unfold. The world doesn’t need another tragedy to learn the lessons of history all over again.

David Kampf is director of communications at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and previously lived in Rwanda, where he worked on development projects.